One of the most difficult things, when you are working on scaling a business and working on backing yourself out of your current role, is learning how to delegate. Learning how to make that transition can be difficult, but the results of doing so are virtually invaluable. As you begin to transition into a leadership role you have to learn the two different types of outsourcing: outsourcing of work and outsourcing of decisions.
Two Different Types of Outsourcing
The Outsourcing of Work
The first level is the outsourcing of work. Outsourcing your hands, what you do, “go do this, do it by this time, and here's how to do it.” Most entrepreneurs kind of get stuck there and there's not enough profitability at that level of outsourcing to justify having a big team. Stay with a personal assistant and you'll be good.
The Outsourcing of Decisions
The second level is outsourcing decisions, backing yourself out of the decision-making process. Having solid, trustworthy people, to make decisions for your business.
Outsourcing Work vs Outsourcing Decisions
When we made the jump from hiring people and telling them what to do, to hiring people and saying, “here's the goal, go figure it out.” It changed everything. It made it crystal clear who needed to be on the team, who didn't need to be on the team, and who needed to be replaced.
In 2017-2018 we went through two teams. Ultimately this was because we were hiring people, telling them what to do, but we had an expectation that they were going to help us grow. The biggest thing we had to learn was that we were not good leaders. It wasn't necessarily the people we were hiring. It was the way that we were managing them.
People aren’t going to help you grow by what they do as much as they are going to help you grow by what they think, right? You have to replace yourself and you are a thinker and that's what happened in late 2018. In 2019 we started exploding. I think the hardest part for entrepreneurs is that we get so used to doing things ourselves. Then we have to make the “doing” into a decision. And sometimes that decision, it sounds like, “look, I trust you enough to make the wrong decision.”
Letting people make mistakes
It is a very difficult thing to get behind because there are times even now, like with our WealthCap team, they're very new. Our leaders for the real estate business had been in place since February, very new, very green. They are experienced in the field, but they do not have experience with our level of growth. So there are things right now that I know are not going to work and I've given them counsel, that it's not going to work. But man, they think it's going to work. And so they're just pushing on as a leader.
In these moments, I have to have the self-control to just be like, okay, because how do we learn? We learn by making mistakes. We're not going to be able to skip our team over the same thing. There's a level where they're going to have to fall sometimes. They're going to have to do it themselves. If you step in prematurely, what you think you're communicating is like, ‘Hey, I care about you. I'm going to help you.’ But what you actually communicate is ‘I do not trust you.’ And then that becomes the ethos that they operate under. Ultimately, you can have a really talented person who does not feel trusted, who will leave.
Closing Thoughts
Learning the power and difference between the two different types of outsourcing will change your life. Don't miss out on the benefits of becoming a Podcast Community Subscriber today. If you haven't already, subscribe to The Traffic and Funnels Show, Daily Mind Medicine, and don't forget to come back to the blog every Friday.
In your service,
– T
